Gamifying PD

Teachers cannot expect to teach in ways they have not experienced as learners. Or willingly and proficiently, anyway. 

That's why my brilliant district tech integration specialists, Marti and Tracy, have:

1. Created formative online assessments to help us differentiate our staff development efforts (Who wants to sit through training on using GoogleApps is one is already a proficient user?)
2. Placed staff development technology "classes" in Moodle, our CMS. (How can I create online activities when I've never participated in one?)
3. Made liberal use of self-created instructional videos so professional development classes can be flipped and the instructors can "clone" themselves and work with three or more groups of teachers at one time. (Oh, now I see how setting up learning groups in my classroom might work.) And can learn independently of F2F classes.

This has been done all in the last 18 months or so. I am so blown away.

But teachers, like all of us, may need a little extra motivation for learning independently, pushing our knowledge of and abilities with technologies, especially as we move to the MR levels of the SAMR model. You know, the scary parts.

I've been reading a lot about gamification in education, although I certainly don't consider myself any kind of expert. What does seem prima facie is that games seem to be universally loved by people of every age and help us all learn. So what I'm thinking about is gamifying our technology PD. Sound like fun?

Here are some things we are considering...

1. Identify the technology skills and uses we think would be useful to teachers and create ways they can demonstrate the mastery of these skills. I believe we already have about 40 separate online activities teachers can work on in 10 areas, each with Substitute, Augment, Modify and Restructure levels.
2. Create a means for teachers to report completion of each activity and mastery of the skill. Design a badge for each area of mastery and assign points. Badges could be put in e-mail sig files or on webpages.
3. Re-design each activity as a "quest" with hints, clues and maybe even humor. I'm thinking that something like the old graphic adventures like Zork might provide a model.
4. Create levels of overall mastery based on the number of points earned. For fun, let's call them Apprentice, Magician and Wizard levels.
5. Run a tournament among buildings to determine which building has the highest percentage of staff at each level. Update it weekly. Give prizes???

What do you think, readers? Do you know other districts doing this from whom we could learn as we design and implement?

One of my favorite "inspirational" posters is the one that begins this post. It universally gets a laugh when teachers see it. If we are going to restructure the learning experience for our students, shouldn't we be restructuring the professional learning experience as well? And if we want to bring a little fun into the classroom how about a little fun in our PD activities?

Just a thought.

(Not 10 minutes after I posted this entry, I picked up ISTE's September/October Leading & Learning with Technology and read Christopher Like's great article "Mission Impossible: Using Gamification to Increase Engagement in 1:1 Professional Development." Just goes to show great minds think alike, I guess.)

www.edudemic.com/2013/08/game-based-learning-infographic

Five years a digital reader

It's been five years that I've been reading books primarily in e-formats. I got my first Kindle e-book reader in the summer of 2008. I am now on my, uh, fourth Kindle and have purchased 260 books - one per week on average and I'd estimate I've read 90% of them. And yes, I've squeezed in a few print books as well. 

The print edition of Slovenly Peter my grandmother read to my siblings and me that still bears the crayon imprint of my younger brother - along side its digital replacement.

As I observed in 2008, the Kindle is:

...is eminently, uh, pragmatic.

I've been an advocate for silicon replacing cellulose since 1995. E-books hold tremendous potential for education - helping (and de-stigmatizing) struggling readers, reducing backpack weight, and even lowering textbook costs. Yet now that this practical device is actually here, I have to admit there are some important things I will miss about paper books:

• How will you start a conversation with the person next to you on an airplane if you don't have the safe opening of "How's that book you're reading?"
• How will you learn about the people who have invited you over to their house if you can't peruse their bookshelves? (A LibraryThing account or Facebook book list just aren't the same.)
• How will you impart memories of love and excitement about books in toddlers who are learning to associate reading with physical closeness, bright pictures and personal attention?
• How likely are children to collect "e-books" that, like in my brother's case above, they make their own?

OK, I am sure when the horseless carriage replaced the horsed carriage, many shed a tear or two over the rich sweet smells of hay and manure. But the Kindle really does feel like the end of print books - objects that have been near and dear to my heart since I was read the horrible Slovenly Peter on my grandmother's lap.

Is this just sentimentality or will there be real loss as reading moves from cellulose to silicon?

So after five years of e-reading, how impactful has the change actually been?

• I read more and read more diverse titles. When I read or hear a review I often order the book immediately. 
• I am "collecting" in e-formats. replacing print version of titles I like to re-read (comfort books).
• I am reading more on devices other than the Kindle - primarily the iPad and iPhone. The Kindle, however, is a joy on longer trips, for reading in bed without disturbing the LWW, and when reading for extended periods of time. 
• My wife, children, and grandchildren still all read both print and e-books - with probably less prejudice than I have.
• The grandkids are still willing to sit still for a print story - as well as having a more interactive iPad experience.
• A big disappointment has been the almost backward steps publishers have taken in making e-books accessible. Dreamer that I am, I had hoped given the choice of buying an e-book from Apple, from B&N or from Amazon, there might be some price wars. If such competition exists, I have missed it.
• A bigger disappointment has been publishers treatment of libraries when it comes to selling e-books.
• And finally, the biggest disappointment has been textbook/educational resource creators with just how little progress has been made in creating support materials that harness the interactivity and usability of e-texts to benefit all kids, but especially ELL students and those who may be struggling readers.

I feel no small amount of guilt that when buying an e-book. It is for the most part, not lendable or givable - to relatives or to my library for its used book sale. I wonder if my collection of e-books will be something I can leave as an inheritance to my kids or grandkids (I can leave a device on which they are all stored, but not the materials themselves it looks like now). 

When purchasing an e-book, one is really puchasing an experience - more like renting a movie - rather than purchasing a physical item. After five years, I'm still coming to terms with this change. 

BFTP: A second Thanksgiving Day

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post, July 5, 2008.

curmudgeon: An ill tempered (and frequently old) person full of stubborn ideas or opinions - wiktionary

A not uncommon response when asking a Minnesotan how things are going is, "Oh, could be worse." Effusive, we're not.

The "could-be-worse" philosophy is one I personally need to remember more often. 

The LWW and I spent a few days visiting the beautiful Texas Hill Country north of San Antonio. We took a whole day visiting President Lyndon Johnson's ranch and hometown of Johnson City.

While most of us remember Johnson as the "Vietnam War" president with chants of "LBJ, LBJ, how many babies did you kill today," I was struck by his efforts to create his "Great Society." It was under Johnson that effective civil rights legislation was passed. Medicare and Medicaid was enacted during his term. Money poured into schools with the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Thanks to Lady Bird, the environmental movement got started, and the Johnson administration added substantially to the National Parks' domain. LBJ signed into law funding for the start of public broadcasting. Any NPR listeners out there? 

Johnson was motivated by the experiences of his own childhood. He grew up poor, worked his way through college, and remained in close contact with his Hill Country neighbors, empathizing with the disadvantaged. He was described as the last great "rural liberal."

Anyway, something about LBJ made me question my curmudgeonly stance on so many issues:

• I complain about aching knees when getting up in the morning when thousands of our veterans have no knees to ache.
• I grouse about my steak being over-cooked when I eat more meat in a week that others do in a month.
• I fuss about the seat pitch on airplanes when I can fly across the country in hours, safely.
• I moan about my grandsons living too far from home when they are healthy, smart, and loving.
• I steam about a lack of funding for technology in schools when education in this country for both boys and girls is universal.
• I grumble about taxes, gas prices, and my 401K's performance when I am blessed with a job I love that allows me comforts unknown to 99% of the rest of the world.
• I despise the politics in this country yet I recognize that I live in a society in which its citizens enjoy more freedom and safety than during any place or time in history.

When it comes right down to it, what do I really have to complain about?  Perhaps we need two Thanksgiving Days in the US. Just as a reminder that many, many, many of us do indeed lead charmed lives.

Could be worse.